


Bitemarks and Bloodlines- Death

by mikhael_klaus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Bitemarks and Bloodlines, Drama, Gen, M/M, Vampires, Victorian, historical fiction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 10:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhael_klaus/pseuds/mikhael_klaus
Summary: When Quinn took to London's gaslit streets that night, he was looking for a hunt. A racing pulse, a smear of blood, the total control he could exercise over another, lesser man; this sometimes felt like the only thing keeping him alive.What is merely symbolic for Quinn, though, is far more a physical reality for another. Blood flows through the veins to give life to one, and past the lips to bring it to another; Quinn isn't the only one out hunting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sample chapter of my upcoming novel, Bitemarks and Bloodlines- Death. 
> 
> The series follows a clan of English vampires from the 1600's to the present day, across England, France, Russia, Wales and America as they walk the line between the human world that bore them and the culture wholly their own. Romani, runaway slaves, homosexuals, those who defy their gender, the sick, the dying, the refuse of society; vampirism calls to those humanity left behind, offering a chance of immortality. Only a chance, though; death comes to all, and a vampires blood only borrows time. 
> 
> For more excerpts, art and information, visit my page-
> 
> http://bitemarks-and-bloodlines.tumblr.com

The necromancers were dying. Toiling in midnight graveyards now lined the pockets only of those who laid the bodies to rest, not the ones who followed and gave new life to cold corpses. To Quinn, it was tragic, that he should come of age after the grand Renaissance of the resurrectionist, and was forced to make due begging scraps from doctors and professors who might have once paid a full clerk’s weekly salary for one body. But that was decades ago, before the girlhood queen had taken her throne and Quinn’s own parents were practically children themselves. Now it was 1862, and people had made such a fuss over their disturbed departed that the law had no choice but to step in, make it easier for medical students to acquire the bodies they needed, much to the chagrin of the church folk, the nameless poor who would find themselves thanked posthumously for their donation, and to men like Quinn, stragglers to a forgotten art. 

Quinn shivered once, despite the mild May weather and his stuffy choice of clothing. He had chosen a thick-pile wool thing to go out in, hoping that the bulk of the coat would hide his thin, lanky shape, just as the hot iron taken to his long hair hid its natural tight coils. A night out hunting was a night he needed to become a shadow, a perfect cookie cutter Englishman, and the typical man of the empire did not have deep skin or thick curly ropes of black hair. No, they had fare manes and pointed noses and skin white as laundry taken right out of the blue rinse. Anyone caught out with bloodstained hands would be jailed within the hour, but someone like Quinn would surely see the gallows within the month, and he didn’t much fancy that idea. It was, thus, unsurprising that the young man was growing...more than a little panicky.

 

Another nervous shiver, and with each shake, the knuckles of his left hand banged against a glass bottle in his pocket, and finally he opened his sweating palm to take hold of his touchstone. He had considered moving his chloroform out of its telltale dark bottle, but even without label the drug was odious and easily identifiable, especially alongside the steel blade and length of cord he kept in his other pocket. There was no lying his way out of these possessions and thus, as always, there was no other option than to simply not be caught. Easy, of course, he told himself. He had done this before, a dozen times, and his stomach sickened with the memory of his last. Too dangerous, too messy, so close to being caught. If he could get by just with digging up the already dead he would, but that wouldn’t cut it now. The only bodies they were willing to pay for were those they could not get for free; the young and robust, dead from duals or accidents or, Christ, anything but consumption, and he couldn’t rely on the Reaper alone to give him such opportunities. Bills needed paid somehow, and this trade provided money that a man with his coloring couldn’t afford to say no to, the food and clothing his father would not give, and allowed Quinn a taste of the life of the educated elite each time he delivered a body to the universities underground. For this, for survival, Quinn could take a blade to a pulsing throat, no matter the nightmares it left him.

 

Beneath his thumb, the edges of the bottle’s label peeled upwards into a coil, one that wouldn't lay down no matter how insistently he smoothed the paper. Soon, he knew, he would have to raid his father’s chemical supplies, and such a thought filled him nearly with as much dread as his looming kill. Quinn’s father was a professor of anatomy at Oxford, and it was under his guidance that many of Quinn’s corpses were cut apart, Dr. Holloway imparting to other men the sort of education he would never allow his own mixed-blood son. Micah never asked where or how he acquired his bodies, and he paid so little attention to his bastard that ideas of his only child out committing wholesale slaughter surely never crossed his mind. Quinn prefered it this way, as attention would come only with a beating at best or suspicion at worst, especially if he was caught robbing his father of chloroform or arsenic. Hopefully, though, he’d have enough for tonight, and maybe another soon. Quinn needed to make it work; he had been unsuccessful for some time in supplying suitably fresh bodies. With the ground frozen through the winter, it had taken him and his hired labor from sundown till sunrise to dig up a corpse, which was cutting it too close for the fresher, more visited graves. Quinn had been so lackluster in his assignments, in fact, that before leaving for a conference in Edinburgh, Micah had made it abundantly clear that should he fail to present a nearly warm body by his colleagues’ Thursday class, Quinn would supply the students in a more...direct way. The young graverobber had no doubt that this threat would be carried through. 

)o(

Spring winds gusted through the London streets, bringing with them a tinge of floral sweetness not pungent enough to overshadow the reek of the Thames. May laid her breath upon the world, nestling to her bosom another year of blooms and fruits and the twittering and thumping of newborn creatures of all sorts. Life burst anew, and where leaves fluttered and scraped the paving stones in autumn, now only soft grasses whispered in the night air. Their fiery colors, however, could still be seen upon those urban streets.

Silas huffed against the playful embrace of mother nature, shunning her coy advances as she spun tendrils of his ember-red hair around her airy fingers. Pudgy fingers scolded her naughty flirtations as he tucked his hair back into the confines of his well-worn top hat, cursing these tepid nights of spring. Warm weather and fresh produce in the stalls were all nice and well after months of biting snow and canned beets for supper, but spring also brought with it the return of the sun. Already the nights grew shorter, the moon robbed of another mile of her kingdom each night as her solar counterpart selfishly grabbed at the hours. Tonight it was just before eight when the sky darkened enough for him to don hat and cloak and slip into the gaslit streets; one could say what they will about the unreliable and acidic hue of gas, but he far prefered its gentle light to the burning fury of the sun. God, he already longed for the too-distant night of the winter solstice, when the shadows overtook the wheel. Everything was simple in the long purple afternoons of December, where the moon and streetlights fought in a riot of silver and amber for who could sparkle the brightest upon the falling snow. This was the illumination Silas enjoyed, and the freezing slush was worth fighting through for a nice, early supper. His only worry then was blood upon the virgin snow.

 

Another playful breeze caressed his heavily freckled face, threatening to undo what little progress he had made in taming his hair, and he gave an almost imperceptibly low warning growl to his forehead, offended when the curls did not heed his obvious superiority. As he tucked it back into place a second time, he cast his eyes about warily, paranoia tinting his vision. Did anyone see? He couldn't afford to draw any undue attention to himself, not tonight. His fucking red hair! Irish prejudice ran so deeply through the city, even in the enlightened year of 1862, that exposing himself as a ginger demon would all but ensure he went home hungry.

 

Superstitious bastards. Silas didn't even know if he was Irish or not; if he ever knew, he had long forgotten that aspect of himself. Heritage of the body was simply not as important as heritage of the blood. Not that this was known to the throngs of theatre patrons and drunken bachelor's around him, though, nor would they care if they did. He looked out of place, and that was all that mattered. His stature was short, his body portly ‘round the middle, and though he struggled fervently to keep up on the seasonal fashions, he just hadn’t mastered the drab, pattern look of the Victorian man. His wardrobes at home were full of fanciful waistcoats in rich plum and bottle green- he would not be harmed by the arsenic dye- and yards of lace piled onto his finest clothes. Among his own kind, to stand out was an enjoyable display within their walls, but pure suicide among outsiders, so it was imperative that he leave his dated attire at home and shield his clay colored hair from the scoffs and hexes of a crowd who really ought to know better. It was the villagers who mostly clung to the beliefs of their grandparents, of witches snatching babies from their cradles to offer to Lucifer, of fae folk walking among them, ready to snatch their children of blight their crops, but a handful among London’s population still believed. Idiots, Silas thought with a slight shake to his head. Hitching down his hat one more time for good measure, he allowed himself a calming breath and a slight smile, fangs just peeking out from beneath his lips. Idiots, to tell stories of fairies when true monsters walked among them.

 

)o(

 

Quinn needed a drink, something hot to settle his nerves and dull his mind to his waxing terror. His mission, though, could not be placed aside even for a drink, so he selected the tavern with the greasiest windows and the loudest patrons. A bell clanged a high note as he popped the door open, but with the din inside he doubted anyone heard. Not packed shoulder to shoulder, but definitely busy, the warm air of the bar wrapped around him, carrying a strong, sour smell of ale and tobacco. Dotted around the many small tables were no fewer than four cardgames, and a tense barter over a long roll of leather; not a single completely empty table.

 

Quinn tugged at his jacket discreetly, looking sidelong to make sure his hair wasn’t trying to spring back up into ringlets, and set about to find a seat. Though not a man who cared much for company, Quinn fancied himself a more convincing actor than any on stage at the theatre tonight. He had to be, to be unnoticed, to not get caught. When an entertainer flubbed a performance, he got boo’d and maybe a bad review in the paper; Quinn would be hanged.

 

Against a near wall were 3 smaller tables, meant to seat no more than two or three men, and the nearest had only a single occupant; seemed as good as any.

 

“Pardon me,” Quinn chipped in a light, bubbling voice once he drew near enough to catch the man's attention. The gentleman at the table looked up from the beer he’d been nursing to show a round face full of freckles and dark hazel eyes. Though his hair was covered by a rather dirty, faded hat, a few frazzled locks escaped their prison to show a bold burnt red hue, even in the grimy lamplight of the tavern.

 

An out of towner, Quinn thought as he tried to conceal his shaking. Or else a migrant from a poorer part of the city. His clothing had the look of garments once quite handsome but now worn far past what any gentleman would wear. Perhaps his wife was in service and had gotten these cast offs from the Master of her house, or he had once been of money, but had fallen into financial ruin. A man with a lot of luck, perhaps, but no real mind for business? That seemed most likely, considering how well the clothes fit; no housemaid wife could tailor that nicely.

 

“Pardon me”, he said again, a forced, shaky smile now forming, “but I was wondering if I might share a table with you? I’m not really up for dealing with drunks and cards tonight.”

 

The redhead studied him a moment, dark eyes flickering over him once before nodding. Under the table, he kicked a foot out to scoot the remaining chair back for Quinn. Taking the seat graciously, unsure of how much longer his knocking knees would hold him, Quinn put an order into a passing barmaid for a hot rum.

 

He sighed contentedly, deciding that eager, earnest young assistant would be his cover tonight. Quinn was 29, a year short of thirty, but his thin face and pale eyes, as well as a fairly short stature, allowed him to easily pass himself off as fresh out of school. Someone naive and unintimidating, almost endearing in their overzealous pep and so, so easy to trust. Men put their guard down around him like this, wanting to appear knowledgeable, superior, and able to show off. If he truly had once been of some kind of social class, his pride and sense of efficiency would surely be as long gone as his wealth, and could do with a little ego-stroking.

 

“Nice night out isn’t it, Sir?” he quipped, turning bright eyes to his companion. “Been snowed in so long it seems, or too bloody cold to be out after work. Been a long time since I could go out and enjoy a drink! Oh, I’m Julian, by the way, Sir! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” He extended his hand jovially across the table, hoping the ginger would follow his bait.

 

Silas appraised the salivating puppy of a man who had invited himself for a drink and Quinn held his gaze evenly, praying that this traveller was tired enough, the bar dark enough and his acting good enough to hide the desperation behind his grin.

 

Finally, though, round and flushed cheeks widened into a polite grin. He clasped his thin hand into his own broad one and shook kindly.

 

“Andrew,” the man replied. “A pleasure.”

 

“Same, same,” Quinn smiled, finally bringing his hand back to his lap to rest right above the cold lump in his pocket. A warm, tickling rush swept through his chest for a moment, causing his pulse to thrum faster. “So have you any history here, sir? I’ve only moved here recently and I’m afraid I don’t know many around here yet!”

 

“Oh no, no, I’m only traveling through,” Silas said truthfully. Quinn nodded politely, and thanked the barmaid who delivered his drink, which he brought immediately to his lips to keep his hands busy. People could detect nervous twitches, even if they didn’t realize it, and decide someone wasn’t to be trusted. He had to get this man alone with him, off guard, and that wouldn’t happen if he sent out too many ill spirits.

 

It was a simple plan and one he’d perfected despite the very few times he’d done it. Pleasant small talk, Quinn being only slightly more open and personal than was considered polite; enough to seem like he came from a lower, less educated class but still pleasant to talk to. He would leave first, and hover about where he could watch the building. Once he saw the direction his companion was going, he’d race to cut him off, and run directly into them. The story would be tailored to whatever they had told him; locals were asked for directions. Out of towners were implored to look for a lost watch, or escort him back to the hotel they happened to be sharing as he was lost and inebriated; that was what he planned tonight, after learning that Andrew was staying in a small inn just a few blocks away. Plenty of alleyways and passages between here and there, nooks to stash the body; he’d be done and ready to meet up with his hired muscle by midnight, and home by 2 to puke and cry himself to sleep.

 

He sipped again, the warm liquor settling into his stomach and reaching its tendrils already through to his fingertips, stilling their nervous tapping. Across from him his victim ordered another beer, and he wondered how many he’d downed already. A drunk could be an easier target, with their senses dulled and their balance off, but they could also be more difficult to lure away. Worst case scenario he picked up someone else, if his conversation partner decided to become too inebriated.

 

An hour passed, the two making chatter about the pleasant spring weather, about “Julian's” work as a bookkeeper for a small herbs and tonics shop, and of “Andrew”s family in Wales. By a quarter to 11, Quinn thought it the perfect time to take his leave. He’d had one warm drink, enough to slow his racing heart and set his mind afire. Tonight…father would be home in 3 days. Had to be tonight.

 

Cordial goodbyes were exchanged, a happy smile, as Quinn took his leave, hand once again in his pocket. A worn label wrinkled slightly under his fingertips, a soft linen cloth was warm at his wrist. Across the street was an empty shop for lease. A small bakery, long closed since afternoon, sat beside it, with just enough room between for Quinn to slip into, beyond the dim lights of the street. The tavern didn’t close until three, but he was patient and quietly awaited his prey.

 

As midnight drew near and the air grew uncomfortably cool, men started to trickle out, wandering back to angry wives or empty beds or whorehouses. With each exiting patron there was a burst of light onto the pavement and the gentle tinkle of a brass bell almost drowned by the arguments and sing-song merriment of men who didn’t have to work tomorrow. None of these moments carried with it the redheaded man. Made sense though; an outsider passing through, sitting alone? He was likely going to empty his purse for liquor tonight. Still Quinn didn’t move, as though afraid a dark clothed man buried in shadows at 12 in the morning would be seen bright as embers if he so much as shifted his weight to the other foot. This was not easy for him at all, though, being so filled with nervous energy. A glass of laudanum when he returned home, that would do nicely, yes...

 

Eventually the noise within that pooled outside grew less and less as the establishment cleared out most of its customers. Only a scattering of men were left inside, none looking any semblance of sober. Quinn sighed, growing malcontent. He should just follow one of these men home, the lonely looking ones; when it came to simply stalking someone, one dumbass was as good as any other.

 

Making up his mind, he unfurled his crossed arms, stretching them slightly with a pleasured groan, and reached his right hand, as always, into his right pocket, for his touch stone. For his comfort.

 

He began to turn around, to head down the back alley, away from the bar, to find a different man, when a voice behind him startled him sharply enough to punch the air from his chest.

 

“You’re a persistent little bastard, aren’t you?” came a familiar drawl, followed only by a flash of deep coppery red, a faint scent of smoke, and darkness.

 

)o(


End file.
